‘He doesn’t. That’s your paranoia talking.’ Well, he doesn’t like menow, not after our little spat, I think. But I don’t say that.Klint requires careful management when he gets into one of his jealous moods. I need to be firm and talk him out of it. ‘Even if he did, it’s OK for a guy to like me. It doesn’t mean anything will happen. You know that. Remember what Dr Millward said? You can control your thoughts and stop them from spiralling.’
But Klint refuses to move on from his conclusion that I’ve been up to no good this afternoon. He barely speaks to me at dinner and gives me the cold shoulder in the room for the rest of the evening. To make his point even further, he yanks the twin beds apart. The noise of the legs of his bed scraping along the wooden floor sets my teeth on edge. So much for me meeting Dain with his blessing. I’ve really set him off this time.
Chapter 12
I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons.
(Charlotte Brontë,Jane Eyre)
Klint is still in a surly mood throughout the next morning, and by lunchtime, I’m on my last reserves of patience. Silently, I chew on a cheese sandwich and read my book while he slurps his tomato soup. Not that the reading itself is a chore.The Brontës, a biography by Juliet Barker, is absorbing. I’m so deeply engrossed I don’t realise that Klint’s left to go back up to the room until Gareth starts clearing the table.
‘Everything all right?’ he asks. I’m sure he’s noticed Klint’s frigid demeanour; it would be difficult not to. His bottom lip was sticking out more than a fresh dermal filler.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘No more foot tickling, I hope?’
I wish. It might cheer him up.‘No, all good on our side of the hotel.’
However, I did have another weird vision. Last night, I dreamt I was seated with three women at the parlour table in the parsonage. All of us were wearing Victorian dresses, and they were scratching furiously with inked quills on paper. They didn’t take any notice of me, but I was included all the same—a warm feeling of trust and camaraderie flowing between us. But I was still very much an observer until the woman opposite, who had the same old-fashioned looped hairstyle as in the previous dream, looked at me with intense grey eyes and said in a low urgent voice, ‘Find it, Lizzy’, which made me wake up with a start in the darkness. I lay there in a cold sweat, breathing heavily and trying not to disturb Klint. Did I dream about the Brontës? Was Emily speaking to me? It was so vivid that I’ve been dragging around a mournful nostalgia all day, like part of me wishes I was still there with them rather than here.
‘What are you up to today?’ asks Gareth, loading our empty bowls and sandwich plates onto a tray. I can’t stay at the hotel with Klint acting like this. Maybe if I give him some space, he’ll come round.
Closing my book, I make a bold decision. ‘I think I might go for a walk on the moors, try out that map you lent me.’
‘Wrap up warm if you do,’ Gareth tells me with a concerned frown. ‘And don’t stay out too long. The weather forecast isn’t looking too good for later on.’
‘I won’t. Thanks, Dad,’ I say with a grin, and he huffs.
‘I don’t want any guests getting lost up there. We’ve got enough ghosts in this hotel as it is.’
‘I’ll stick to the marked trail.’
‘Good. And please take a fully charged phone.’
Huh, that’s exactly what Dain said—Dain, who hasn’t contacted me since our pub meeting and another reason I have to do something active. If I sit around here reading about the Brontës, I’m going to be tempted to message him.
Collecting my book and phone, I head out of the dining room to get ready for my expedition. But in the doorway, I turn to Gareth. ‘Actually ... you don’t have a trowel, do you?’
***
Puffing, I reach the top of an incline, cross over a gushing stream, and check Gareth’s map. All going well, if I follow the rutted dirt track to the left, I should reach Penistone Crag in a few minutes’ time.
My walk up until now has been uneventful, though the sprawling stone estate of Ponden Hall provided an interesting diversion. The Brontë sisters apparently spent time in this home when they were young and played with the owner’s children. Its interior reputedly provided inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, the Linton family home inWuthering Heights, and alsoThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Not long after, I’m standing on a stone outcrop, looking down into a purple-heather-strewn valley, with Ponden Reservoir a silvery strip in the distance. A cold, blustery wind whips up tendrils of my chestnut hair like snakes; and I pull my beanie down further to protect my ears, which are starting to ache from the constant buffeting. Away from the confines of the hotel room, the moors, with their wild beauty and streaking black clouds, are affording an energising freedom, motivating me to keep pressing forward to my goal: Top Withens, the farmhouse that inspiredWuthering Heights.
I’m following Gareth’s map faithfully, or so I think, until I realise I’ve strayed too far west and have to pick my way back over boggy ground. But still, I can’t find the path. There’s nothing for it but to go off-piste and climb up a ridge through knee-high bracken, in the general direction I’m meant to be going, until I come across it.
All this takes time under the dark watchful gaze of a threatening sky, which seems to be gathering momentum. Gareth wasn’t joking when he said the weather forecast didn’t look good. Panicking a little, I pick up the pace. But it takes me another twenty minutes to find the path, by which time I’m tired, sweaty, and ready to go back. But I’ve come this far, and a wooden signpost juddering against the wind says it’s only another half a mile to Top Withens. Hopefully, I can get there and do what I need to do before the heavens open and that there’s no one there to witness me doing it.
A cold, misty spray is falling as Top Withens, the remote ruined farmhouse with its two old trees nestled in the brow of the hill, comes into sight. By now, my short walk has turned into a persevering slog. The rain worsens and is persistent enough to make me pause and flip up the hood of my jacket as I locate the trowel in my backpack. The lower part of my jeans are soaked. I probably should be wearing proper hiking gear. No matter. Let’s get this done. I can have a warm shower when I get back to the hotel.
Checking there’s no one else around, I clamber over to the foot of the nearest tree and start digging ... and remembering ...
***
I first met Klint during a climate change protest in central London. I was wearing a green onesie and had ‘Vote for Earth’ written across my face in blue paint.
